Salt Air
by NiceFwoops
Summary: When Rose was young, she thought Falmouth, Cornwall was the worst place on earth.


written for the fanfiction quidditch competition finals...i had to write about someone leaving Falmouth, Cornwall for the first time. Takes place between GoF and OotP, mild Remus/Sirius at the end, and it ties into a recent fic of LuxaLucifer's in that bit. hope you like it!

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When Rose was young, she thought Falmouth, Cornwall was the worst place on earth. She would sit in Moughmough Square and pretend to do the homework her mother assigned her, glaring at each and every witch and wizard who passed.

Falmouth was boring. Falmouth was full of tall pale houses that slanted together and left no room to breathe. It was drab and boring, and the sea air stung her nose. She hated swimming, and she hated pastels. Boats made her queasy, and Quidditch put her to sleep. Rose Zeller did not like Falmouth.

For five days before she went to Hogwarts for the first time, all she did was cry.

She couldn't figure out why at first. She hated Falmouth. She hated being there. Her confusion only made her cry more, until her mother kicked her out of the house and ordered her to find some air. How was she supposed to _find air?_ Falmouth was nothing_ but_ air, air poisoned with the salt taste she detested.

But she did what her mother told her, because she wanted to get away from her mother as much as her mother wanted to get away from Rose.

At first she only sulked. She was good at that. The neighbor kid, Frank, had once laughed at her and told her that her face was made for frowning. She'd almost pelted him with magic, but she knew better; she pelted him with rocks instead.

Then she began her own little quest, one last adventure in Falmouth for Rose. She walked. She wasn't a walker by nature. She didn't particularly enjoy it; she preferred brooms or Portkeys or Side-Along-Apparition or even Muggle cars. But that day, with the fog settling in heavy around her and people hurrying to and from their jobs with grim purpose, Rose walked.

She went to the dock first. She stood on the hard cement and let the wind whip her hair and stared at the bleak waves as they crashed against the waves. A ship began to dock as she watched, and she counted how many sailors she could see manning it from her spot. The loud caw of white gulls woke her from her daze eventually, and she began to walk again.

Next she walked past the tourist district, past one huge house after another. What had her mother called them? Georgian? Her mother was proud of her home, and she'd taught rose as much as she was willing to learn, which admittedly wasn't much.

She strolled past the houses, ignoring the way her legs were beginning to ache, and headed for the art gallery without really realizing that was what she was going for. She passed the entrance to the college campus on her way, her breath coming short gasps by then. When she reached the art gallery she sank against the wall and stared at all of the art, feeling as though there was some deeper meaning in all of them that she couldn't quite grasp and might never be able to.

She only stayed in the gallery long enough to catch her breath. She'd spent the day so far walking around the Muggle world, and was beginning to want for magic, so she headed to the theater where Moughmough Square was, wondering if she'd feel less restless and lethargic in the wizarding world.

She didn't. If anything, the feeling grew stronger. She wandered the shop she'd known all her life, struck by the feeling that nothing had changed, not as long as she lived. She paused by a copy of the Daily Prophet and flipped through it, thinking maybe she could distract herself. The only thing interesting in it was a piece on how Harry Potter was actually a liar and an attention-seeker. Rose didn't know what quite all of the words meant, so maybe she had missed something, but it didn't sit quite right with her. It unsettled her so badly that she felt a little sick, and nearly ran her way out of the King James Lecture Theatre, bumping into several people on way back to the Muggle world.

It wasn't like she was missing anything in the other world, she told herself as she wiped her eyes in an empty theatre seat. The air in the wizarding district still smelled like salt.

She went to the aquarium last. Funnily enough, it was the only place in the city that didn't remind her of the sea. It had just as many exhibits about bones and dinosaurs as it did fish, and she like staring at them and pretending she was in a different world. When she opened the big glass doors to get in she instantly felt a little better. She snuck in with a group of Muggle students and spent several minutes just staring wistfully at a case of old dirty dinosaur teeth.

"We came back."

Rose is interrupted from her own problems by two men holding hands walking towards her. It is not the holding hands bit that surprises her, but the tiredness in their eyes, in the lines on one man's face and the gray in his brown hair. They look around like they've come back to a place long missed.

"Remember when I promised you we'd come back?" said one, shaking shaggy black hair back as he stared around, eyes sunken into his pallid face.

Rose recognizes him. He is Sirius Black.

She doesn't move. She doesn't know if it is because she is afraid to...or because she doesn't want to.

"Of course I do," said the other man.

"I'm sorry it took me so long, Remus," said Black simply, and the way he turned to Remus was so full of love and longing that all thoughts of telling someone slipped Rose's mind. She wanted to help them, but she didn't know how. She wanted to know him. She wanted to love someone someday as much Sirius Black loved this tired, worn man with a sad smile.

When, a year later, Sirius Black's name was cleared after his death, Rose wasn't surprised. She cried then for a different reason.

Rose left the aquarium and walked home, breathing deeply. She would be going to Hogwarts in the morning, but today, she was in Falmouth, Cornwall, and she didn't hate either prospect.

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did you like it/ tell me in a review!


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